Panasonic RX-5150

The Panasonic RX-5150 is a good quality mid-level boombox from the early 1980s. It must have been fairly popular, because even today you can find one on Ebay every week. They typically sell for $100-300 depending on condition.

It's a mid-sized model, measuring 504 x 281 x 175 mm. It doesn't have a lot of "bling" for the street, but that's because Panasonic usually targeted a more conservative buyer. It's very similar to the RX-5250 except it has round grills instead of square, a different tape door, and a different LED meter. It also lacks the Dolby switch and the Rec Level knob found on the 5250.

It has 16cm woofers and 3cm tweeters, and puts out 2 x 7.5 watts "RMS max" according to the US service manual. However, the Japanese service manual says it's only 2 x 5 watts using the EIAJ/DC industry standard. The tape deck, if working correctly, is pretty decent quality. Its wow and flutter is only 0.055% WRMS, and its frequency response is 60 to 16,000 Hz when using Metal tape.

Normally this model has beige colored speaker grills, shown in the first photo. The second photo shows a tastefully modded one with custom silver graphite painted grills, owned by Boomboxery forum member "Superduper". And the third photo shows the rare RX-5150F/FA version with its black grills and black rear case.